"I find good men talking about bad men incredibly irritating," she said. "This is something the good men are doing a lot of at the moment ... Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with the Jimmys and the Davids and the other Jimmys.

Advertisement

"But the last thing I need right now in this moment in history is to have to listen to men monologue about misogyny and how other men should stop being 'creepy', as if that's the problem.

"Men are not creepy. Do you know what's creepy? Spiders, because we don't know how they move. Rejecting the humanity of a woman is not creepiness. It is misogyny."

The comedian, who shot to international fame earlier this year thanks to her Netflix special Nanette, said men in Hollywood need to stop talking as though there are only two types of people in the world: those like disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and everyone else.

"My issue is that when good men talk about bad men, they always ignore the line in the sand," she said. "We need to talk about how men will draw a different line for every different occasion.

Loading

"They have a line for the locker room. A line for when their wives, mothers, daughters and sisters are watching. Another line for when they're drunk... a line for friends and a line for foes. You know why we need to talk about this line between good men and bad men? Because it's only good men who get to draw that line.

"And guess what? All men believe they are good."

The comedian said men should start thinking about the times they've moved the "line" for their own good or someone else's.

"Women should be in control of that line," she said as the crowd broke into applause. "No question."

Gadsby then asked the audience to think about how her line-in-the-sand metaphor might work when it comes to people of colour, different sexualities or those with disabilities.

Loading

"Everyone believes they are fundamentally good," she said. "We all need to believe we are fundamentally good, because believing you are fundamentally good is part of the human condition. But if you have to believe someone else is bad in order to believe you are good, you are drawing a very dangerous line."

The speech has already won praise across the world, with some social media pundits even calling for the Australian comedian to host the Oscars.